Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to the field of computers and similar technologies, and in particular to software utilized in this field. Still more particularly, it relates to a method, system and computer-usable medium for on-device authorization of devices for collaboration and association.
Description of the Related Art
It is known to communicate with and control many devices via the Internet. This communication and control is often referred to as the Internet of Things (IoT) and the devices are referred to as IoT devices. The IoT allows devices to be sensed and controlled remotely across existing network infrastructure. IoT devices often have limited resources (e.g. battery power, transmission distance, storage area). Often to fulfill a task, some IoT devices may need to use the resources of other IoT devices. However, known authorization models may be insufficient to address emerging IoT requirements. For example, role-attribute based access control models (RBAC/ABAC) can separate the access decision from the point of use, introducing additional performance overhead which can be unacceptable in the case of limited IoT devices. Also for example, access control lists (ACLs) define the users authorized to access the resource along with their access rights. The ACLs efficiently remove the performance overhead of RBAC/ABAC by moving the access decision point to be close to the point of use. However, known ACLs models do not provide the capability to manage association and collaboration between IoT devices.